This is a profile piece featured in NKD Magazine’s February 2018 issue.
Springing onto the TV thriller scene with a great deal of fanfare, Syfy’s Deadly Class has already excited audiences with a star-studded cast and heavily stylized combat scenes. The likes of Benedict Wong and Lana Condor help propel a storyline about the seedy underbelly of 1980s counterculture, focusing on an assassin school for dozens of misfit young adults.
With cinematographic choices skewing towards shadows and dark color palettes, the colorful and wacky nature of the show’s cast shines through in an endearing way. Perhaps one of the most intriguing of the main set is Billy, played by Liam James, whose signature green mohawk may serve to be the least interesting thing about him as his character develops throughout the pilot season in 2019.
22 years of age at the time of this writing, Liam James is already an established acting veteran, having played his first TV role at 10 years old in Psych (2006), and his first film roles at the age of 11: Good Luck Chuck, Things We Lost in the Fire, Fred Claus, Alien vs. Predator: Requiem (2007). Born in Vancouver, Canada, he lived with his mother, father and brother growing up. While they weren’t exactly film buffs, Liam always was, and his family was encouraging about exploring art. Liam recalls being thankful as a child and teenager that his parents didn’t hassle him for watching R-rated movies with explicit content. His favorite movie at the age of 11 was The Green Mile. “There was this unspoken agreement that if it was truly a piece of art and it wasn’t being gratuitous for the sake of being gratuitous, then it didn’t matter if it was more mature,” he explains. Another personal favorite of his is The Simpsons, which he watched with his father regularly.
Liam’s beginnings in acting at an early age, he says, were thanks to a friend of his mother’s who was a background acting coordinator. She got him involved on movie and TV sets, and after enjoying his experience doing so, Liam took on work as a body double. With a lot of downtime in between shot setups and actual filmmaking, he found that he enjoyed the atmosphere of a set and being around adults. Eventually in 2013, he’d even get to act with one of his personal favorite actors.
That would be Sam Rockwell, who played William “Wild Bill” Wharton in Green Mile. This time, they would work together on The Way, Way Back, an experience Liam is deeply grateful for to this day. “This is someone who permeated my consciousness and didn’t even know it, influencing all of my work. Sam’s had an enormous effect on my career.”
That’s led him to now, where Liam says Deadly Class has been the most transformative experience he’s ever had in acting. He actively reflects on the litany of time spent channeling so many characters already in his 22 years: “Before Deadly Class, every [role] is special. Every year means something. My first experience with dramatic roles was on The Killing, which was when I was 14. That was when I realized it wasn’t about having story beats, but also about having an experience with the person there and thinking outside the words on the page.”
Liam says he was one of the last members cast to portray Billy, a role he’d auditioned for via long-form monologue on tape. His agents were stunned but joyous to see their client send it merely one day after receiving the script. Liam attributes his quick turnaround to an infectious energy about the script, especially when it came to the potential for growing Billy’s character. An audition with casting producers was scheduled.
“Walking into an audition is not an easy thing to do, but the casting producers were super cool, they wanted me to succeed. They had seen some of my other work from shows like The Killing and because they respect the shows that I was in, they were immediately nice to me and immediately put me at ease,” Liam recounts.
Billy himself is a living display of a fractured connection between outward demeanor and actual realities of his life circumstances. He lacks a traditional family structure, has endured violence plenty in his young life and lives day-to-day, yet maintains a boyish joy and jump in his step, replete with a cigarette in his ear to go along with booze in his hand. Liam sees him as an ever-positive force making the most of surviving in a dangerous wasteland. “My mindset was to play this character as ever gleeful in the face of things we usually gasp at. It’s interesting to me how Billy manifests his own happiness,” he elaborates.
When it comes to his preparation for stepping into the role, Liam says, “All acting work comes from day-to-day experiences and what you find interesting about life, and you go share that into the rest of the world. I think making what’s authentic and honest to me is what’s authentic and honest to Billy.”
What people can expect from Deadly Class in 2019, he says, is not just the thrill of stylized violence, defeating villains or the indulgences of drugs and sexuality, it’s “genuine material with actual human conflicts and questions that people can relate to.”
Although Liam’s usually occupied with acting endeavors, he says he hopes to take on more writing and perhaps directing in the not-too-distant future. In the meantime, he’s focused on Deadly Class and capturing the gritty highs and lows of his show’s world.
“I truly do hope that audiences will not only be entertained, but invigorated and inspired to question themselves and the people around them in order to find out more about themselves.”